Here come the Experts to tell us why we shouldn't worry about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yes, we get it that the people who are running the revolution in Egypt appear to be a lot of middle class and jobless youth with Internet tools who seem to be the antithesis of backward extremist movements. Yes, we get it that while Muslim Brotherhood members have been arrested by the government in connection with the unrest, in fact the revolutionaries haven't chosen to focus on them so as not to distract from the cause. Yes, we get it that the situation is evolving and complex and confusing.
But I'm failing to see why we can't criticize the Muslim Brotherhood, and can't ask a lot of questions about this secretive Islamist movement that has been banned by the despotic Mubarak regime now being toppled in Egypt.
I'm putting this post on my blog about new media because I think there are a number of media-induced aspects to the framing of this debate, amplified and accelerated by new media, and that makes it difficult to have a critical and open discussion about this phenomenon. Already I've seen profound myopia and even looniness from a media researcher who refuses to accept my pointed -- and correct -- comment that there aren't very many women visible in the protests in Egypt. And I've seen the Egyptian revolution picked up uncritically as group-bonding experience for Internet denizens, whether they are Anonymous 4channers who are "helping" by practicing DDOS "civil disobedience", or buyers-remorseful Obama voters looking for something more dramatic to express their unhappiness than the complexities of health care.
A lot of the reportage making the claim that the demonstrators aren't like the Muslim Brotherhood seem to establish this claim merely by invoking their youth, their jeans, or their use of Facebook, without doing much actual polling of their views.
I've written in the past about the left's aversion to condemning extremism and violence, and forthrightly making the critical separation and distance between advocating for the rights of victims of oppression, which might include extremist Muslims, and those extremists' own views which are antithetical particularly to women's rights and intellectual and religious freedom -- this was exemplified in the story of Amnesty International and Gita Sahgal, the former women's rights program officer who departed. I've also written about the global left's increasing unwillingness to insist on nonviolence and even its tendency to provoke and celebrate violence, as in the Gaza flotilla tragedy.
The theory of the Muslim Bros goes like this:
o if you criticize them, you must be for Mubarak -- a despot who lorded over a corrupt and abusive regime for three decades where dissidents and rebels have been arrested and tortured and civil society oppressed
o if you criticize them, you must be ignorant of history and culture and the many nuances of this complex movement
o if you criticize them, you must be prejudiced against Muslims
o if you criticize them, you must be an uncritical supporter of Israel or even part of a Zionist lobby
o if you criticize them, you must not be aware of all the moderate things the Bros have been doing and their acceptance in the revolutionary coalition
o if you criticize them, you must be part of the American Tea Party or conservative right-wing
o if you criticize them, you must fail to see the good social welfare work they do among poor people
So, that's a pretty stacked deck, and many a timid soul stops with their worried thoughts and their misgivings, seeing this stacked deck. Not I.
The first thing to admit about the Muslim Brotherhood is that nobody is an expert. That comes as quite a shock and surprise to some who have based their entire careers on being regional Middle East experts who are now being quoted everywhere about this movement, and comes as a challenge even to the manhood of various intrepid young scouts from the global wired left backpacking around Cairo and tweeting their impressions "from the ground".
Too bad, I'll repeat it again: nobody is an expert.
The reason is very simple: the movement is a secret, banned, Islamist movement and nobody has ever seen what they would be like if and when they came to power. That's all. So everybody is guessing, nobody is an expert, nobody can point to some other country -- or Egypt itself -- where this movement has been in power, so we can't know. We'll see.
Next, nobody can be sure that this movement, which says it is moderate and is shying away from the imposition of a Caliphate or the use of violence or even some aggressive agenda with regard to Israel or the suppression of women, in fact has control of all its factions or in fact is telling the truth about what it will do.
ElBaradei, the moderate who has emerged as a leader of the "big tent" is waiving away concerns about Islamist fundamentalists saying that those who ask this question are just like the Mubarak regime, invoking Islamism in order to justify oppression.
No, I'm not. I'm invoking Islamism because it has been used to oppress other people in Iran, in Algeria, in Afghanistan and other countries, including in countries where it is supposed to be moderate, and -- again -- we don't know how this historical moment will play out.
Women in Tunisia demonstrating against the return of some extreme Islamists don't waive away these concerns like ElBaradei -- but, oh, I suppose in the next minute we'll hear they are tools of the regime and justifying past oppression.
Groups that have their history in the underground and who have faced torture and oppression learn subterfuge and live the life of partisans. That doesn't lend itself to being open and transparent and saying what you're really about. Therefore it's more than fine to ask questions about intentions and plans -- and to worry out loud how it might turn out. Doing that is what I call "walking and chewing gum at the same time" -- it doesn't mean you advocate their oppression or side with their oppressors, it means you care about universal human rights for all.
After all, tons of middle-class Egyptians who have become more secularized, including many making this revolution themselves, are asking these very questions themselves, but maybe not out loud.
They may not be able to ask them out loud if they feel they are in a politically constrained situation where to ask them out loud looks like a) playing into the hands of their oppressor they're trying to get rid of and b) playing into the hands of putative propper-uppers of their oppressor, like America.
But we don't have to live by those constraints -- and we shouldn't.
To the extent this revolution *does* turn out better, it will be because not only we, but people for whom it is a life and death matter in their own country get to ask this question, and those being asked the question dispel doubts not by dispelling debate, but by actually going ahead and tolerating women's rights and other human rights as well as peaceful dissent and a negotiated process to the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Why is the left rushing to tell us that we should not worry about the Muslim Bros, that we got it all wrong, that we are prejudiced, that we aren't experts? Surely they realize it could all turn out very badly?
Answer: because this issue serves the following political purposes for them:
o It enables many people who are semi-experts or even actual experts to indulge in a grand session of knowier-than-thou gloating -- if they can show even one revolution in a Muslim country that doesn't go bad, they can question many policies and procedures, ranging from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to aid to authoritarians such as Mubarak to junk-touching at the airport -- that sense of power is awesome sauce!
o It's a stand-in for American politics -- like Muslim youth, the American left bashes Obama, leading the most liberal administration in history, with his cautions and slowness on dumping Mubarak, and with his support of Israel. These are political necessities in America if you want to get to be -- and stay president. So to the extent that people like Blain Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy, can lord it over others on Twitter and damn CNN commentators for saying the Muslim Brotherhood is extremist, so can he position himself to win in American politics in general, at a time of bitter struggle between left and right. Then there's Tanya Somanader writing that "there isn't one iota of truth" in any concerns about extremism merely because she wishes to associate this perspect with discredit figures of the right, like John Bolton.
o for the conscious socialists and the stealth socialists, it's a cause that helps them discredit Western capitalist governments as crooked and on the wrong side of history -- glorifying Muslim people's revolutionary struggles helps them wage war against "flannel-wearing Christians" (!) -- funded by the Koch brothers, naturally.
So, like any country-specific body of knowledge, or any political science, the Muslim Brotherhood issue -- precisely because it's about a secret movement that says different things at different times -- represents an opportunity to always keep everybody else off balance. It's like the practitioners of BDSM or Scientology who tell you that you can never understand enough about the facts about their belief systems. The movement iself will keep people off balance and feeling guilty in this way, and work that to their advantage -- and so will its apologists and supporters and even just general well-wishers. So it will be impossible to stop the juggernaut of various media, institutions, human rights groups, UN officials, etc. etc. that will keep telling us that we're wrong to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and when you have a wall of suspended disbelief like that, not only is it hard to get the facts, the facts then tend to become what the transnational elite believes about the situation -- and that empowers transnationalists everywhere when that happens.
If it gets too bad and the facts of oppression of women or even terrorism against Israel become a factor, they can always do what they did about rampant massacres in Algeria or terrorist attacks that have killed dozens of citizens every few weeks in Iraq for the last years (to make up a death total of 100,000 mainly killed by terrorists): ignore them.
Already, we can see all the classic sorts of reporting memes that occur with communist and other cultic and extremist movements. In fact, the communist and socialist movements around the world have lustily joined the cause of the Egyptian revolution precisely because it gives them ample scope to bash America, bash Israel, bash a tyrant who blocked communism as well as Islam, and advance their cause. They go light on Islamic extremism precisely because they need it as an ally -- for now. They'll make short work of religious freedom for Muslims later, of course, because they don't believe in it -- they think it's merely a form of false consciousness.
We can also see, like the Spanish Civil War or the Russian Revolution's early days, that various stylistic scenes are portrayed as serving as proof of the authentic and good nature of this particular revolution. Yes, there are scenes of people looting. Yes, the revolutionaries are putting those suspected looters face down on the pavement and delivering the People's justice. But the good revolutionaries are confiscating the looted items and keeping them in the People's mosques. Yes, there are scenes of people perhaps merely trying to run to safety or passing by demonstrations or demonstrating but then getting pushed back. But there are the brave revolutionaries handing out the People's water to the People and charging once again at the tanks. Yes, there are concerns about extremist beliefs of some Muslim Brotherhood members, but look at how they help poor people! Of course, movements like this always help poor people; that's how they get recruits.
Yes, there are fears that the revolution could turn out just to be an army putsch with civil society as a prop, or Islamists with internal helpers are getting ready to make a coup themselves. But no, there is brave ElBaradei, an universally recognized international civil servant keeping the various strands together and keeping it all moderate.
Let's hope so. He seems like a ready and good solution to a lot of people's problems. Yet if he keeps invoking the idea that the critique of the Muslim Brotherhood is only a function of Mubarakism, he will have no credibility. As he is quoted in the Times:
“For years,” he said, “the West has bought Mr. Mubarak’s demonization of the Muslim Brotherhood lock, stock and barrel, the idea that the only alternative here are these demons called the Muslim Brotherhood who are the equivalent of Al Qaeda.”
He added: “I am pretty sure that any freely and fairly elected government in Egypt will be a moderate one, but America is really pushing Egypt and pushing the whole Arab world into radicalization with this inept policy of supporting repression.”
Pretty sure? Then he shouldn't have qualms about people expressing their rejection of extremism. If Islamist extremism is a chimera only invoked by discredited tyrants, then I guess we won't be seeing it manifest, right? And if we do? Then what? Is it ok to say "no"?! Pushed into extremism? Well, if the regime is toppled, that won't be necessary, right?
I don't think ultimately it does ElBaradei, this supposed sacrosanct revolution, and people who are supposed to benefit from it any good not to criticize the Muslim Brotherhood and express the gravest concerns about it.
No, nobody is an expert. Explaining that it has matured, changed, split, evolved, repurposed, said this, said that -- none of this matters when we haven't seen how it will behave in power or sharing power, how it will treat Israel, and how it will treat women. We need to keep asking the questions over and over again until they are irrelevant by manifest facts on the ground.
Treating Israel right is indeed important. I'm not one of those people that would find it somehow "progress" to demolish Israel and expropriate disputed territory for Palestinian movements that use terrorism and rule despotically themselves.
If what is occurring in Egyptian is "democracy," then let's have some universalist sort of demands for the liberal connotation of democracy that we usually mean and for which we usually hope, for ourselves and others. If it is a democracy and not an enraged demos, then it can surely find a way to have peaceful relations and resolve disputes with another democracy, Israel. Unless, of course, you mean "democracy" as in Iran in 1979 or in Algeria in the 1980s.
When I mention the need to keep a critical eye on the Muslim Brotherhood, and I question some of the antisemitic rhetoric I see from its avowed supporters, like @Messrologist, who rants endlessly about Jews and Zionist conspiracies, and posts tweets like this
I get back a stream of invective that I am filthy garbage myself -- and blocked so that I can no longer see those sorts of tweets, and they may be deleted. That about sums up what we can expect -- hate, invective, extremism -- and hiding the tracks.
Yes, through search, I see what else goes on, like this, from @Messrologist, in response to this person, who has apparently criticized someone as insufficiently revolutionary:
- moghtareba Nada
(tootytoot)Egyptian living in Qatar, University student, sometimes talkative sometimes not
@moghtareba Send his URL and I'll take care of his Jew ass!
Now, random people on Twitter don't necessarily represent a movement, but I will see that almost nobody dares to actually articulate any qualms or actual knowledge-based fears about the Muslim Bros precisely because of the potential for vilification and vicious backlash from just those types of people.
And when you face that, it's hardly a free and open discussion.
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